July 11

ROGER:
This morning most slept in later than usual, since they went to bed at such an ungodly hour of 9:45 (that is PM), so we loafed around for a few hours as we were originally planning on staying another night in Maun. We had done what we wanted to in Maun, except clean the truck up, and hit an internet café briefly. Tau is coated with mud, dust, and grime (inside and outside), and I was going to take it to a local “car wash” and get it thoroughly cleaned. I did get to see who I wanted to in Maun and we ended up getting finished there quicker than we thought we would, so after wasting about 2.5 hours in the AM it was finally decided to push on and head for Guma Lagoon to do a Mokoro trip. A mokoro is a traditional “dugout” type canoe (hewn from a solid tree trunk), and pushed through the Okavango Delta with a long wooden pole. Anyway we had to hit an internet café briefly to pay bills etc, (to decide if we had enough money to get back home), and do a little grocery shopping. We packed up quickly and cleaned to truck out “sort of” – just enough so we could sit on the seats and not hit our heads on the roof when we hit a bump, due to the layer of dirt on the seat – anyway you get the picture – it was dirty.

At the internet café I got quite a surprise – I just gave Mugabe $399.30 in Zimbabwe. OK I admit it – I was stupid. As you probably know the inflation rate is horrific in Zimbabwe, and the local people are just begging and getting foreign currency any way they can. Their money is pretty worthless and they will beg for any foreign currency. The exchange rate on the street is from 100,000.00 to 150.000.00 Zimbabwean Dollar to 1 US Dollar. The shops that are “licensed” to take foreign currency will give that exchange rate, but they cannot exchange extra money – that must happen at the bank. There are warnings that it is illegal to exchange on the street, but of course it happens all the time. I asked someone what the exchange rate was at the bank and they said around 25,000 to 1 – which is 4 to 6 times worse than buying with US Dollars (only where allowed), but I thought I will go to an ATM and just get 1 million or so Zim Dollars. When I tried it said that was over the legal limit, so I got $100,000.00 only. That is worth about $0.67 on the street. I told the others it was crazy I could only get that amount at the ATM – it was worthless. Today when I checked my bank balance online I saw the debit for $400.00 for the ATM at Vic Falls. I wrote and email to the bank and told them there had to be some mistake – I was expecting about $4.00 – worse than local rates, but I wanted to compare it. Before I sent the email I went online to get the official government rate to explain what it should have been, and was shocked to see it was 1 to 255. I couldn’t believe it – that is the government controlled rate – so I just paid $400.00 to get local currency that was equal to 67 cents at a shop. Our bill when we ate out for 7 was 7,500,000.00 Zim Dollars with a tip. It cost us $50.00 USD with the exchange rate they used. If they would have used the official exchange rate that meal would have cost us $29,411.77 US Dollars. It’s good I checked the exchange rate there before we ordered! How could I be so stupid – next time I’ll do my homework FIRST. I am still mad at myself for that one. I talked with many people on the street, and everybody is so upset at Mugabe and just waiting for his death. It is so sad to see a country like that – one that had a bright future 20 years ago.

Anyway I get accused by the others of my rambling – so here is the rest of the day: We drove to Guma Lagoon and camped at a “luxury” lodge in the Delta – we didn’t camp in their luxury tents, we self-camped. We ate supper. We talked. We went to bed. We went to sleep hearing the hippos snorting. Good Night.

PS – I did NOT snore.
Roger

Jolene
HAHA